For many musicians and composers birdsong is the ultimate musical composition - yet is it music: Birds use variations of rhythm, relationships of musical pitch, and combinations of notes that resembles music, but without fixed musical intervals, as on a scale, there is a chaotic randomness to their singing.Continue reading Birds in Music

What better introduction to Spring than this quotation from the writings of Richard Jefferies.

"The bird upon the tree utters the meaning of the wind—a voice of the grass and wild-flower, words of the green leaf; they speak through that slender tone. Sweet­ness of dew and rifts of sunshine, the dark hawthorn touched with breadths of open bud, the odour of the air, the colour of the daffodil—all that is de­licious and beloved of springtime are expressed in his song. Genius is nature and his lay, like the sap in the bough from which he sings, rises without thought". —’ Field and Hedgerow’: Hours of Spring. Richard Jefferies

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About This Blog

Welcome to my Blog – a celebration of birds – in art and anecdote, poetry and prose – part memoir, part anthology, part nature writing, with biographical snippets about favourite artists. Follow me as I ramble through the year writing about the birds I see – share your own encounters with birds, or tell me about your patch … More

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Simon Coleman Richard Jefferies wrote two great essays on the theme of Trafalgar Square in London. One of them, ‘Sunlight in a London Square’, has already been featured on this website. The following quote is from ‘The Lions in Trafalgar Square’ which explores the relationship between human life and the great unknown, with Landseer’s huge […]

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